What to do if you find yourself stuck with no hope of rescue: Consider yourself lucky that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far, which given your present circumstances seems more likely, consider yourself lucky that it won't be troubling you much longer.

Vogon poetry is widely accepted as the third worst in the Universe. The second worst is that of the Azgoths of Khria. During a recitation by their Poet-Master Grunthos the Flatulent of his poem Ode to a Small Lump of Green Putty I Found in My Armpit One Midsummer Morning, four of his audience died of internal haemorrhaging, and the President of the Mid-Galactic Arts Nobbling Council survived by gnawing one of his own legs off. The absolute worst poetry was written by Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Sussex. Luckily, it was destroyed when the Earth was.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a wholly remarkable book - perhaps the most remarkable, certainly the most successful, book ever to come out of the great publishing corporations of Ursa Minor. More popular than the Celestial Homecare Omnibus, better selling than 53 Things to Do in Zero Gravity, and more controversial than Oolon Colluphid's trilogy of philosophical blockbusters - Where God Went Wrong, Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes, and Who is This God Person Anyway? It has already supplanted the great Encyclopedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for two important reasons. First, it is slighty cheaper; and second, it has the words DON'T PANIC written in large, friendly letters on its cover.

The Encyclopedia Galactica, in its chapter on love, states that it is far too complicated to define. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has this to say on the subject of love: "Avoid, if at all possible." Unfortunately, Arthur Dent has never read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Vogons are one of the most unpleasant races in the galaxy. Not actually evil, but bad-tempered, bureaucratic, officious, and callous. They wouldn't even lift a finger to save their own grandmothers from the ravenous Bug-Blatter Beast of Traal without orders signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, lost, found, queried, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighter. On no account should you allow a Vogon to read poetry to you.

The Jatravartids, who live in perpetual fear of the time they call "The Coming of The Great White Handkerchief", are small blue creatures with more than fifty arms each. They are unique in being the only race in history to have invented the aerosol deodorant before the wheel.

The extraordinary story of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy begins very simply, it begins with a man. An Earthman, to be precise. Who no more knows his destiny, than a tea leaf knows the history of the East India Company. His name is Arthur Dent. He is a five-foot-eight-inch-tall ape descendant, and someone is trying to drive a bypass through his house.